


A Breath in Between

by SpazzticRevenge



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Alternate Timelines, Anxiety, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Living on, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern AU, Not soulmates au, One Shot Collection, Romance, Sand Sculpting, Sexual Content, Soulmark AU, Zombie AU, bucket list au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:39:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12330276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpazzticRevenge/pseuds/SpazzticRevenge
Summary: A collection of Victuri one shots. Just a gathering of quick thoughts, prompt fics, and gift fics. Summary will change with the addition of each new one-shot.I: In which Yuuri is Viktor’s soulmate, but Viktor is not Yuuri’s.It isn’t enough, Viktor thinks as he watches from the table, to be this close and not be able to touch, feel, have. Yuuko steals Yuuri’s attention so easily. It’s always her name on Yuuri’s skin, never his. The ugly gaze of jealousy pierces her, but she never feels it. All she feels is Yuuri’s love, so ready, so firm. Precious hands tendering her heart.II: (Zombie AU)They’re almost there. Safety is just on the horizon. Just a few more steps and Viktor will be free from this hell. But Yuuri. Yuuri is only walking towards his death.III: (Sand Poodle Contest AU/ Bucket List AU) written for Kepler_16bIt sits in the middle of the page, in Viktor's pretty curled handwriting, uncrossed. It was one of Viktor's last wishes, one of the many that litter the crumpled, tear-stained wreck clenched in Yuuri's hands.Erect a monument of Makka at a Sand Sculpting contestWith the help of his friends, Yuuri is going to grant it, Viktor or no Viktor.





	1. cross my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kepler_16b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kepler_16b/gifts).



> A self-indulgent one-shot heavily inspired by [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4139766) Code Geass fanfic.
> 
> Sorry, Axel, Lutz, and Loop. I couldn't imagine Yuuri with anyone else but Yuuko when not with Viktor so… this blecked out of my brain.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

It isn't enough, Viktor thinks as he watches from the table, to be this close and not be able to touch, feel, _have_. Yuuko steals Yuuri's attention so easily. It's always her name on Yuuri's skin, never _his_. The ugly gaze of jealousy pierces her, but she never feels it. All she feels is Yuuri's love, so ready, so firm. Precious hands tendering her heart.

Takeshi is next to him, drinking his mind into dark oblivion as he shares Viktor's view. He's a blubbering mess, cursing into his shouchuu as he blathers on about his conflicted feelings towards them both - his best friend and his lifelong crush. Viktor cleaves him with a sharp cut of his eyes. At least Takeshi has a mutual soulmate, some shrine maiden sweeping the season from stone steps by a lake two towns over, a woman that never fails to give him affection and a healthy litter. He always has someone waiting for him, and still he wastes that destiny on the fragile driftings of a child's love.

Viktor doesn't allow himself to stew in his bitter anger. He's used Takeshi's position to his advantage a few times. He wonders if he'll ever use it to drive it all home. Viktor's twisted desire snakes around them, but it's slain before the first slither passes his lips. Yuuri's laugh is loud, choppy and hiccupped with glee. His besotted face makes Viktor want to scream.

Yuuri is so happy, fingers crisscrossed with hers.

Viktor pulls back. He pours Takeshi another cup, deposits the man in one of the rooms of the inn when he thunks his face on the table.

And then he sits, in the absence of sound, reminded again of his fate.

All Viktor can think is that he's a mistake, a hiccup in the fabric of time. He's only here to tear the two lovers apart. If they're meant to be together, what is his purpose but to drive a wedge between them? He can't live without Yuuri, yet he's done it _so many times_.

As he looks back out at the bound pair, he thinks

Once more can't kill him.

* * *

This time he's done it, taken treachery to a new level. He manipulated the pieces long before anyone had even noticed the game had been set. Gave Takeshi the right push, whispered suggestions to Yuuko, stole Yuuri away until he could see. The tears are ugly, predictable, and Viktor knows now that he deserves every stab of guilt they serve him.

Takeshi and Yuuko are intertwined, kissing and folding into each other in the middle of the rink. Yuuri stares until events unfold further and the two leave, still wrapped in each other's presence. Yuuri doesn't move, rooted to the spot as the love on his skin flits away with another.

Viktor doesn't smile, but he feels it behind his teeth, open and jagged and well-sated having gorged itself on bonds that were meant to be. Yuuri is his now. Yuuri will love him and forget about the woman that has caused Viktor so much turmoil.

It doesn't quite work out that way.

Yuuri mourns until he forgives. He always, _always_ forgives, but Yuuko doesn't forgive herself.

Yuuri finds solace in his arms, as expected, as planned, and it's only with mild nausea that Viktor ignores the truth stirring in his mind. Yuuri still wants her, would be with her if she'd let him. Viktor allows himself this little victory, cheat he may be, because it is his right after all.

Why else would he be blessed with Yuuri's characters upon his skin?

* * *

He hates her, but it's hard, she's such a good person, heart of gold, a perfect match for Yuuri. The reality of that stings because it all but assures him that he is a mistake. He is the outlier here, not meant to be.

Destiny bites into his chest. A half-truth that scars.

He doesn't care if it's a lie. His feelings for Yuuri are a permanent fixture, and he's tired of bottling them up.

This time, he confronts her.

Yuuri's name is brandished on his chest, curled perfectly over his heart. He yanks the fabric from his form until his soul mark is on display for the girl's eyes. Viktor feels competition stirring again, a rampaging storm in his chest, heat burning through skin to breathe tears of pain, desperation, need. Victory is on the horizon if he just pushes, yanks the last of the air from his lungs, and bloodies his body and soul. He can hear the clamor of cheers, feel millions of eyes like dead weights clamped on every muscle. Viktor is a champion. He will win.

Her hand slowly glides to her clothed forearm, no doubt caressing the mark of Yuuri left on her.

He doesn't know where this is going. It's the first time he's shown anyone but Yuuri this mark, and it's been three lifetimes since that happened.

She steps back and all but gives him the gold. He grimaces at the thought of Yuuri as a prize to be won. It's almost as disgusting as the thought of winning by default.

* * *

"I wonder what her name is, Viktor. I bet she has a pretty name."

Yuuri's staring at Yuuko, trying to get up the guts to talk to her with three going on four cups of alcohol. Viktor has the advantage this time. This time, it's him that is the long-time friend, and Yuuko that comes in late. They're at a frat party, tipsy off of whatever stained the red punch purple, some caustic mix that has even Viktor a little muddled, tripping into languages that are more home to him than the English he uses to get Yuuri to turn around. To look at him, not her.

She's not from their university. Not from their town. She's an outsider. Doesn't belong at this party. In their lives. Viktor takes the chance and kisses him. Yuuri's mouth halts its ramblings about the girl's glittering eyes. He stutters. Stumbles as some idiot dances back into him.

Viktor moves around him, protects him from the chaos the party has become. From the hold that Yuuko always has on him.

"Viktor, I-"

"I love you, Yuuri."

It steals Yuuri's words, his train of thought, his virginity as they move to one of the unoccupied rooms in the house. Viktor's name isn't on Yuuri's body. He's never surprised, but it never fails to sting. So he leaves his own physical imprints in the form of teeth tracks across his hips, indents on his thighs, love bites on every rib.

Yuuri fingers his name on Viktor's chest, a wispy stroke that consumes Viktor's breath and pops his skin. Yuuri apologizes, shame contorting his features, because it's not his name on Yuuri's side. A prickle of tears form with the words, dripping down from his heaven above him.

Viktor envelops him in his arms as he sits up, sheets spilling between them. "It doesn't matter, Yuuri. It never matters. I love you. I always love you." He chants this every time. To Yuuri. To himself. It bounds out of his throat even when things don't work out this well.

"I love you, too," Yuuri replies with a watery laugh, eyes rimmed red and a drunk flush to his cheeks. He's a mess, his beautiful mess. "I don't need a soulmate. I just need you."

Those words mean more to Viktor than any name could.

* * *

Viktor watches Yuuri's son and wonders, for just a moment, what their child would look like. He stares down at Vicchan - named after him, Yuuri couldn't have been more sweet, more _cruel_ \- and tries to imagine if it was his blood running through his veins. How his dimples would look with Vicchan's smile. How his brow would curve on Vicchan's face.

It's too hard. The image is too distorted by reality's impressions. Because Vicchan is not his.

He is _hers_.

Vicchan looks like her. Those chestnut eyes, the heart-shaped face. Even the way his hair falls steals from Yuuko's gene pool. Viktor can't stand it, doesn't want to see it. So he looks again, finds solace in the fact that the black of those locks, the round to his cheeks, and the curve of his smile are all Yuuri. He hangs onto those, the bits that are Yuuri, as he spins circles around the rink with his soulmate's child.

The child that will never be his.

"Faster, Uncle Viktor! I can go faster!"

He can't go faster. His six year old legs stumble, skates fleshing ice into snow as they click together. He ends up face planting on the ice, knocking out his latest wiggly tooth with the impact. Viktor braces for tears, already taking him into his arms and holding him close.

He should have expected more from Yuuri's child.

Vicchan pouts for only a moment before a fire sparks in his eyes. He pulls away from Viktor, an "I'm okay, don't worry," muffled as he holds a gloved hand to his bleeding mouth. He looks back at the ice, mind whirring. Viktor can see his mind working through those all too familiar orbs, reworking his steps to find his mistake and figuring out how he could get better.

He gets better. After a few more tries, blood racing down his lip, tooth in Viktor's hand. Viktor's jaw nearly unhinges as he watches him not only skate through his routine faster, but uses his momentum to execute a jump that he's not due to learn for another three months. Vicchan gets so excited. "Did you see, Uncle Viktor? I looked just like daddy! Soon I'll be as good as he was!" Viktor's heart warms, because although Yuuri's run on the ice with him has passed, his legacy lives on. Right beside him. Gripping onto his hand. And then, "Soon I'll be as good as you!"

Vicchan races off, already trying another jump. He doesn't see how Viktor cries.

* * *

It's sick. There has to be something wrong with him. He shouldn't derive so much pleasure from a grave. A dead body. A lost life.

Yuuko is dead. Viktor feels the horrible desire to wear a T-shirt, string up a banner, and celebrate. He's spent years, _years_ , being a shadow, a transient presence. He let them have their love, their life, and now it's his turn to love.

To live.

He spends the flight wondering how this will play out, jittering in his seat and smoothing out his receding hairline. He's put himself on leave from his skaters, leaving them in Yuri's very capable hands until he gets back. If he ever goes back.

He sacrificed his career to be with Yuuri, all those years ago as they spent that year high on the wings of something that was never built to last.

He's prepared to make the sacrifice again.

He helps Yuuri through it all. The wake. The funeral. The cremation. The ash gathering. The first week memorial. The sobs at night - mid-morning - every day. The panic attacks that leave him shaky for hours. The listlessness that withdraws him from Viktor's touch.

It's a slow process, but she eventually fades. Memorialized only in her enshrined face in the corner.

Yuuri brightens, falls back into the strong-willed blossom of sweetness that Viktor knows. Viktor worships him, carves passion into his body like he was made to. He pays special attention to the creases in his forehead, the roundness to his stomach. Time has not changed Yuuri, just added new bits of him to love.

Viktor loves him. He can almost fool himself that this is enough.

It's not.

Yuuri's sleep is disturbed by her memory. It's Yuuko's name he whispers, a prayer into the night. A kiss blushed passed his lips. Viktor hears it, swallows against the growing despair.

Yuuri is _his_ now. Why? Why is she still here? A goddess of death that looms over his happiness. Isn't he allowed happiness? Yuuri is the only happiness he's ever wanted.

But Yuuri still begs for her in his sleep.

Something breaks.

* * *

It's when he thinks about carving his permanence into Yuuri's skin that Viktor realizes that there is truly something _wrong_ with him. He would never hurt Yuuri. Not intentionally. Not physically. Not in a way that he couldn't fix afterwards.

But he stares. At that name. At her daintily pressed mark on crystal skin. A blemish that ripples still waters. He imagines wiping it away, with bleach, and a scouring pad. Shredding through skin and muscle and bone until the words no longer speak. He couldn't possibly be satisfied until he'd demolished every inch of her from their existence. He could bite his own name into Yuuri, dig the sharp of his nails in and bleed devotion out of him.

Sometimes, Viktor terrifies himself.

* * *

It's with maddening need that Viktor kisses him. In the middle of everything, in front of everyone. It's Yuuri's wedding day and Yuuko cries, mascara stained tears stark against the white of her shiromuku. The audience erupts. Yuuri stands there, gaping, silent. Viktor's hands plead along his face, drifting longingly across his neck.

Yuuri's mind eventually kicks to life. He apologizes to the crowd, to Yuuko. He doesn't look at Viktor as he excuses them.

"Just a moment! I'll be back in just a moment!"

It's a foretelling of the rejection Yuuri serves him in private.

Yuuri kisses him, but it's parting, a goodbye that's hellfire in Viktor's heart. He whispers things, sweet but heartbreaking things, that dig down into Viktor and suck out his hope. Viktor's heard the words before. They lay engraved somewhere unseen, lost in the tides of time. In the end, he's left discarded by the shore, Hasetsu's sea breathing salt against his face. The wedding continues without him, its sound a murmur amongst the rolling waves.

It's with Yuuri's name on his heart and his impression on his lips that Viktor heaves his own goodbye. He bows his head to the sky, a begging question tearing through his destiny. He doesn't know if it will work, if it will help. But this is the last time he can attempt to rip them apart.

He can't do this anymore. Not to himself. Not to Yuuri.

Yuuri deserves his happiness. And Viktor is only hurting him.

With these last thoughts stirring, Viktor asks to be released.

* * *

Every day he feels like something is missing. His chest feels empty, naked. His fingers brush across his plain skin, expecting to see something that is not there. There's an echo that ripples across his skin every once in a while. It's the gentlest touch that leaves him gasping into nothing, goosebumps rising to a call that was never made.

Viktor closes himself off to the feeling, even as his heart mourns for something it does not remember.

Soulmates are everywhere. It's all he sees. But it is a destiny he was not born with. He is blank. Unattached. Unburdened.

The ice is the only thing he needs. Its crystal clear pallor is a mate to his own.

He watches a skater from the sidelines, sees him burn his name into the ice with quiet, undeniable passion. Something stirs inside Viktor, emotions he long ago thought he shed.

Yuuri is the world's newest fascination. Viktor's too. They meet. They talk. They laugh at their mutual stock of fan swag, both embarrassed but too exhilarated with the meeting to care.

Viktor doesn't know how the topic rears its head, but he finds his gaze roving over Yuuri's form as they talk about it. Soulmates. Disgust climbs up Viktor's tongue and it's weird. He's never felt much for soul marks. Certainly not the hatred that swells with each breath he takes in. Viktor eyes Yuuri, wondering where his soulmate's impression lies, whose name beats with his heart.

"Oh… no one," Yuuri replies, feigned nonchalance tripping on his tongue. "I wasn't born with a soulmate. My skin's blank."

Viktor blinks. "What a coincidence," he says as he takes Yuuri's hand in his. The sensation is so familiar, the feel of his fingertips zinging straight to his chest.

It's like coming home.

"My skin's blank, too."


	2. escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Zombie AU) They’re almost there. Safety is just on the horizon. Just a few more steps and Viktor will be free from this hell. But Yuuri. Yuuri is only walking towards his death.

They're heading into the checkpoint and Viktor's all smiles. Their little group meshes into the huddled mass of other desperate, fleeing people just as the sun begins to decay along the horizon. Viktor's bouncing in his spot, talking jubilantly with an older woman next to him. She's telling him stories of their journey, of her remarkable granddaughter who's currently hiding in her skirts. It's just them, she breathes, choking up, and Viktor gives the woman a hug, then the little girl, too. Yuuri smiles fondly, one gloved hand curled in the older man's palm. _At least Viktor still smiles_ , he thinks. The world may have gone to hell, and they'd lost so many, so much, but he's still sunshine, radiant in the gloom and enveloping others in warmth. Even when Yuuri dies, Yuuri knows Viktor will be okay.

Yuuri fights it, but his face turns noticeably grimmer as they get closer. He can feel it, the inevitability of his end swallowing his expression. Viktor's like a child at Christmas, eagerly waiting to open his shiny new presents, all innocent and giddy. Yuuri is like a child who knows, who snuck a peek at his presents and knows that there is only coal.

He tries to pretend that he doesn't know what awaits him, that he won't be yanked out of the crowd and shot dead in front of a bunch of spectators, his love included. His shoulders hunch instinctively, body growing smaller, and smaller still. His hood shades his eyes, but they can still see him. They all see him. He was an idiot for thinking that he could do this. He couldn't just blend in, act a part of something that he isn't. But he could at least see Viktor to safety, right? That's all he cares about. Not surviving. Not seeing his own family, wherever they are. He just wants Viktor safe, free like he could never be.

Viktor takes notice of his anxiety, as he usually can. The man has a honed sense on him by now. Yuuri has no clue why he hasn't noticed the dark side of him yet. Yuuri's hand grips tightly, fingers bruising bone deep. He's too strong like this, but too weak to stop himself. Clutching onto the man he loves, the man who's become his whole world in only a matter of months, is the only salve that soothes his soul.

Viktor clutches back. "Nervous?"

_You have no idea…_

"There's nothing to be nervous about, my Yuuri." His name is a purr of two syllables, so simple in its structure, but elegant when passing through those lips. It soothes. It soothes. "We made it and when we pass through, we can rest. For a little while, anyway. The second we're alone, I'm stealing you for _hours_ …" His voice goes seductive, twirling and curving into Yuuri's entire being. "We'll finally have the privacy to" he quiets, whispering the rest in his ear and making Yuuri burn hot.

Yuuri flicks him on the forehead, voice stern as he scolds him. There are people standing on their toes, so close how could they not hear and how is he supposed to face anyone now? But there's a softness to him now and he wishes, oh he _wishes_ that he could be normal. That he could make it through this checkpoint and experience the utter bliss that Viktor promises him.

But he's not normal. They all can tell. The border guards and soldiers stare, looks of suspicion and fear searing into him. Pure cruelty lurks at the corners of one guard's eyes, and he cocks his gun in preparation. Yuuri only makes himself look guiltier, practically melding himself in Viktor's side. He's like a thief holding his goods beneath his clothes, a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his skin, and they can smell his intentions a mile away. All of their eyes zero in on him in the crowd and he desperately wishes to tell Viktor goodbye, that he loves him, that he's sorry that he didn't tell him.

A man comes up to them and Viktor passes the inspection with flying colors. He waits, hand still clinging onto Yuuri as the man comes up to him. The device is cold on his pulse. It smells sterile and unpleasant. Yuuri could fight, he thinks, as he looks over at Viktor. He could tear into all of the guards, or maybe just one. He could cause panic and chaos, grab Viktor and run. But he's not like that. He can't. He doesn't want to.

The scanner beeps. Yuuri gasps in a choked breath as the guard looks at it. He wonders if Viktor will cry when he's gone, if he'll try to fight for him, or if he'll find him disgusting and hate him for deceiving him. But Yuuri knows that in the end Viktor will be fine. He's always fine. He'll be better off without Yuuri holding him back. He should be with a proper human. Now he will have the freedom to do so.

The soldier looks at him. Yuuri can feel it coming. The gunshot will take him easily. The bullet will rip through his brain and silence the monster inside of him, taking his human side with it. It's good. It's right. It's just. It's-

He passes the scan. The man looks shocked. Yuuri looks shocked. All of them look shocked. But Viktor just pulls him along by the wrist, ignoring them all. He's already back to cooing warm words at him, even as Yuuri is too stunned silent to talk back. Viktor could always fill in the silences by himself.

They load the bus with the rest of them, prepped to enter the domed town that stands as salvation. Yuuri doesn't belong there. It's a fact that stirs in his mind and beats with what's left of his heart. That city is a haven for humans, people with futures and hopes and dreams. It's not a place for people like him.

He is no longer human.

He is infected and yet…

He's not undead either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may continue this in little snippets throughout this collection. We shall see.


	3. For Viktor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Sand Poodle Contest AU/ Bucket List AU) written for Kepler_16b
> 
> It sits in the middle of the page, in Viktor's pretty curled handwriting, uncrossed. It was one of Viktor's last wishes, one of the many that litter the crumpled, tear-stained wreck clenched in Yuuri's hands.
> 
> _Erect a monument of Makka at a Sand Sculpting contest_
> 
> With the help of his friends, Yuuri is going to grant it, Viktor or no Viktor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um… this is a lot longer than a drabble. Oh well. 
> 
> [Kepler_16b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kepler_16b/pseuds/Kepler_16b): Pretty sure when you made this request a year ago it was supposed to be fluffy and cute, but… I ruined it. Leave it to me to turn a suggestion of a sand poodle building contest into some angsty, what have I done, I hate myself fic. But here you go!
> 
> Sorry it took so long.

Yuuri lays in a hammock that is too big for one, on a porch that used to sit three, attached to a house that he can no longer stand the emptiness of. The hammock sways with the breeze, columns groaning as the ropes strangle them in their hold. The sun is bright, fiery in its passion as it breathes life through the trees, their leaves shimmering sunshine across porch planks. Shards of broken sunlight poke at Yuuri's form, groping at him to get up and _shine_.

_"Shine, Yuuri. Like you always have. Shine for me, love."_

Viktor's voice accompanies the stubborn rays and the sly breeze nudging at him from below. It's always there. Somehow. Even though Yuuri knows that it couldn't possibly exist. It's a ghost's voice that stabs at his soul.

_I can't shine anymore, Viktor. Not when you're not here with me._

_"Yuuri…"_

Yuuri can hear the disappointment, a deep yawning abyss that is hidden within the utterance of his name. Yuuri feels himself slipping into that abyss every time he hears that voice. Every time he feels this emptiness in his chest grow as if his ribs are being ripped open, his heart bare and struggling to beat in the stark cut of air.

But it is not real. There is no abyss. There is no disappointment. There is no whisper of his name. There is just him, swinging in his too-big hammock, clinging to a note written in a dead man's handwriting.

Yuuri swallows back his grief as he looks down at the paper. It is Viktor's list. Made one night when the man had been strung out between emotions. He had been through the wringer. Like an actor volleying different characters, Viktor had taken on every emotion within the span of a few hours. Death was a new concept for him, something he had never been prepared to face and the reality of its brisk advance tore through him like a bullet.

If it had been like a bullet for Viktor then it came like an unstoppable freight train for Yuuri. It ran right over him, left him chewed up on the tracks, still alive but too paralyzed to register the gravity of his situation. Yuuri simply sat and stared while Viktor ran the gamut of his emotions. Yuuri couldn't feel. Every emotion of his own had been stemmed off, cauterized so they couldn't bleed out because this was about Viktor. His Viktor was dying.

They had known Viktor was sick, but this…

A tornado had blown through their living room and when it was all out of rampaging rage, windswept confusion, struggling sorrow, and furniture-flinging guilt, it fell against him. Viktor fell into Yuuri's lap and apologized, because this was it. This was the rest of their lives. What was once so open, boundless, limitless before them had been slammed shut on their greedy fingers. They didn't get anything more than the three years they'd had. Three tiny years.

"I wanted a life with you, Yuuri. I was supposed to get a _life_. Not-" Viktor choked, the words left to stream down his cheeks as he clung onto Yuuri, his only buoy left to him in turbulent waters. Yuuri struggled and his emotions bled without warning. The flesh broke open, and Yuuri cried, too.

It took time, but they adjusted. Found that if this was what they got, then they got more than some. They knew Viktor was going to die and they could spend every day making the most of the time they had.

The list had been Viktor's idea. He started it the night they'd found out, when all that was left from the tide of Viktor's outpouring emotions was heart-wrenching ambition. He wanted to accomplish everything he could before he was gone. Every silly little thing that he could dream up he was going to go for. With Yuuri by his side, he was going to be stopped by nothing but death.

"That's not funny, Viktor."

"It's kind of romantic, though, right?" And Viktor had given him that grin, that same grin that had stolen his heart in building 3A's lecture hall years before.

"You don't need it. You don't know you're going to die. Miracles in medicine happen all the time! They can find a cure! Or-Or I looked up these trials! If you just keep taking the medicine-"

"Yuuri…" Viktor looked at him, pained, because they both knew the truth. Yuuri was just loathe to accept it. "Then I will have at least gotten to do amazing things with you a little sooner in my life than I meant to."

Yuuri tries to smooth the list out on his jean-clad lap. It's wrinkled and torn, pieces of it worn away during trying nights and the best days. There are tiny, charred holes along the margins from a disaster with fireworks. Previous wet spots mar some lines and Yuuri can identify the perpetrators that caused them. Tears. Wine drops. Blood smears from a coughing fit. More tears. Rain drops. Splashes from the ocean.

The list is a bunch of scribbles, some legible, some too smeared to be recognizable. Only half of the lines are crossed out.

Yuuri cries every time he looks at the list. His breathing chokes him, and he gags on a sob so hard that he freezes, open mouthed and face screwed up in agony. He clutches at the sweat jacket around his shoulders, the fabric crafted to fit a bigger frame. Viktor's scent has been gone from it for too long.

The note is unfinished. It will never be finished. It lays half-lived. Like Viktor, ashes spread in so many places, a small portion compact into the ring that encircles Yuuri's finger. Yuuri's tempted to tear up the note and spread it around, too. But he can't. It's his last gift. His salvation that keeps him from crumbling completely.

On Viktor's hammock, in Viktor's jacket, with Viktor's note in hand and Viktor's physical being a corpse on his finger, Yuuri grieves.

* * *

Phichit visits.

"Do you ever leave that thing?"

Yuuri doesn't acknowledge him. If he does, he knows the face Phichit will make when he sees his puffed face, the crater crevices beneath his eyes, the bruises his own hands have made on his wrists.

He doesn't say anything else. There's a god-awful creak and the hammock shifts dangerously. Yuuri doesn't attempt to stop his possible fall. The hammock steadies, it's heavier, and he feels a body behind him, arms wrapping around him and if Yuuri doesn't look he can pretend that it's Viktor. Viktor is there with him. In more than a note and a jacket and a piece of jewelry.

"I'm so sorry, Yuuri." But it's Phichit's voice. His smell, his touch. Yuuri will never have Viktor again.

"Yeah."

They're walking Makkachin when Phichit snatches the note from his pocket. "Phichit, don't-" Panic engulfs him, leaves him a frantic mess as he attempts to nab it back. _It's Viktor. He can't take Viktor from me. Not now-_

"Wow," Phichit exclaims and Yuuri deflates. Phichit climbed a tree to get away from him. Makka barks at him, tail wiggling her excitement. Yuuri doesn't have the energy to feel betrayed. "I heard you guys were doing this, I mean you told me and you were gone, but… You got a lot done."

Yuuri mumbles, but it's quiet, dark and broody, and it's like spitting out stones, bruising his throat and breaking his teeth because it's hard to say and even harder to think but it's the truth.

"What?"

"Not enough," Yuuri repeats and his hands are fists at his sides and he's suddenly so _angry_ he can't control it. He's reminded of Viktor that night. Maybe he's dying too.

Phichit's suddenly around him again. He smells like pine and dirt and the spice he swears makes you faster. With how quick he scrambled up that tree Yuuri's inclined to believe him. Yuuri feels the note as it is gently placed into his pocket.

"Then finish it."

It's a mere whisper, a brush of air that sinks into Yuuri's mind and makes camp for days. He can't stop thinking about it. He wants to do it. Set off and finish what Viktor set in motion. But it's Viktor's list. What's the point if Viktor isn't the one who finishes it?

_"Shine, Yuuri."_

_I can't._

* * *

A bus practically careens onto his front lawn. The tires screech, he hears the shrieks of people inside and it comes to an abrupt halt, nearly tipping but sinking its tires into what was once finely trimmed grass. Yuuri jolts up from the hammock, jaw lost somewhere beneath his porch. Makka stands guard before Yuuri, growling, and then makes a welcoming bark as a tan hand waves out the driver's window.

"Heya, Yuuri!" Phichit is all smiles, even as he's left deep tire treads in his lawn and nearly killed everyone in his bus.

Whoever is in his bus.

Phichit jumps out the door as soon as he finishes fiddling with the lever and pounces on the still stunned Yuuri. Yuuri's about to inquire about the elephant trampling his flowers when its occupants tumble out.

"When you said road trip, I didn't think you meant to hell! Who taught you how to drive?!" Yuri is the first to stumble into view. He's pissed, and there's a darkness lingering beneath his eyes that Yuuri feels on his own skin. Otabek is beside him, steadying Yuri's off balance body.

"I guess I should have taken out that life insurance policy after all," Chris quips as he exits next, taking a drag of air into his lungs through a grinning mouth. Then he looks at Yuuri. "Mon cher."

Phichit sidesteps and then it's Chris hugging him. It's the first time since the service and Yuuri swallows the stones this time. It feels as if not a minute has passed. This is Viktor's best friend, the only person who knew Viktor as well as Yuuri. Yuuri feels bound to the man more now than ever before.

And then there's a hand on his backside. "Your ass is as impeccable as always. I've missed it."

Yuuri wriggles out of his hold, face a shade between scandalized and amused, and can't fight the laughs the action startles out of him. "It hasn't been that long, Chris."

"And yet, far too long." Chris winks.

Sara runs for him, trips and wrings her arms around his neck in a firm hold, effectively strangling Yuuri. He swears he can feel his trachea crack and his lungs wither. "S-Sa… _Sara_ …"

"Sara, babe, you're choking the poor thing!" Mila eases her off, but Sara is determined to hold onto some part of him. She settles for the ties of Viktor's jacket.

"But he looks so miserable, Mila!"

"Thanks, Sara," Yuuri deadpans. "I think nearly dying has made it all better."

"Would you like me to kiss you instead," Mila offers.

"I think I'm good, thanks."

"So now that we've all shared in near death experiences," Georgi pulls up the rear just as Yuuri is plowed into the ground by a very excited Kenjirou, "let's get this show on the road and off of Yuuri's azaleas."

"What show?" Yuuri wheezes as he sits up, Kenjirou still clamped around his waist. "What are you all doing here?" Yuuri peeks around the mass and sees more still within the bright yellow beast. Guang Hong and Leo are waving at him from the front. A brooding Michele sits more towards the middle, his hand held up as Emil puppets a greeting until Michele nabs his hand back. Seung-gil is near the back giving him a nod and a possible half-smile. "What's going on?"

He knows. He knows what this is. It's written in bold spray painted graffiti on the side of the bus. **YUURI & VIKTOR'S BUCKET LIST ADVENTURE** He just can't believe it. That his friends, that both of their friends, would gather together to do this.

Yuuri's not ready. It's like moving forward without him. It's like accepting that he's gone. He can't move. He's going to cry. He's imploding and exploding all at the same time and he's going to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. He can't handle this.

Phichit grabs his hand and yanks him up. Kenjirou is suddenly gone from his side. "We're going to build a sand Makka." Yuuri gasps out a laugh and stares at Phichit's tempered smile. Their hands are firmly melded together, a lifeline. "For Viktor."

The group gathered around them echoes "For Viktor," in a garble of out of sync tones.

The tears fall and Yuuri furiously tries to keep them back with his knuckles, still laughing because he's happy and grief-stricken and so tired that he can't keep shuttering it all back. The note is heavy in his pocket. Makkachin barks beside him and it seems that even she shares the sentiment as she licks the ring on his finger and runs onto the bus.

He never really had a choice.

Yuuri pulls out the list. His eyes trace over the tiny blue letters that Viktor wrote that first night.

_Erect a monument of Makka at a Sand Sculpting contest_

"For Viktor."

* * *

Phichit and Chris are the masterminds behind it all. They took the time and looked up possible events. Recruited their friends. Signed them all up. Bought the bus. They wanted to do something, Phichit explained, and this was what they came up with.

Yuuri's moved, and a little perturbed that they never asked him, but mostly he's moved. The event is in California. They will have to drive through four states to get there. Phichit, Chris, Mila, and Georgi switch off driving, the four of them having acquired commercial driver's licenses for this very occasion.

"It was fun," Mila chimes, applying her nail polish with impeccable skill through every bump and weave.

Phichit scoffs. "Yeah, when you weren't scaring the DMV guy into his next life." He turns to Yuuri, cupped hand hiding his mouth. "She's a total speed demon."

"You're one to talk!"

The bus is difficult to sleep in, but not much sleep is had with everyone around him. Yuuri feels outside of it all, as if seeing everything at a stranger's distance. Everyone is rowdy, laughing and joking. Snacks are tossed about in the air. Mila does everyone's nails, even Yuri's -though it's while he's asleep - and Seung-gil's with grudging acceptance. Leo plays his latest playlist through the radio. When they stop to gas up and have a bathroom break many grab at the stash of paint cans from the toss of bags and go to town on the rest of the bus.

Yuuri reads through it all and his smile, still rusty and painful on his face, renews itself.

In bright green, through all the jokes, hashtags, art pieces and illegible names, is

Yuuri & Viktor

A love that never dies

It's a quiet, small thing in the corner on the back of the bus, sitting like an inconspicuous bumper sticker. The ring on Yuuri's finger burns starfire hot. He can't breathe.

"Yo, Katsudon! Get your ass back on the bus, we're leaving." Yuri's hanging out the door, a bright green smudge on his collar.

"All of this over a damn fuck it list," Yuri grumbles once they get moving.

"Bucket list," Kenjirou corrects from his side of the aisle.

"Yeah, that's what I said," Yuri huffs, crossing his arms and kicking his feet up on the seat in front of him. "Isn't this just like sappy Viktor. I bet that ass hole planned this when he made that list. He always had the foresight of a psychic within that thick skull."

Otabek turns around and peers back at Yuuri and Phichit. "Don't let him fool you. He was excited when Phichit called and told him about this."

"Can it!" Otabek is yanked out of sight by hot pink nails. "I was not."

Phichit giggles. "He so was."

Yuuri laughs, and he begins to feel its depth in his chest.

When they get closer to their destination, Yuuri holds the list in trembling hands, thinking over all of the memories he and Viktor shared. He bites back chuckles at some, clenches his eyes shut through others. He shares them with Phichit, Kenjirou, Leo and Guang Hong when pestered enough. Yuuri catches Leo staring at one line and it hitches his breath.

_Live out the rest of my life by Yuuri's side_

The words come with surprisingly little hesitation. "Viktor said it was like a free space. A given. No matter what happened he would get at least one thing crossed off…" Yuuri's voice quiets and Yuuri can hear Kenjirou's sniffling, "even if he was no longer alive to do it."

"But it's not-" Guang Hong starts and stops himself with a hand hastened to his mouth. He bites on it with apology in his eyes.

"I could never get myself to do it. It would be like… an official goodbye," Yuuri squeaks out, voice wobbly. He holds onto his hand and that damned ring that speaks to him. He hates it. The replacement. The thing that he has instead of a living, breathing Viktor.

The bus is graveyard silent until they reach the beach.

* * *

Another surprise and more hugs await him as they arrive. Yuuko and Takeshi are there, lounging in the sand. Yuuko jumps up as soon as she spots their bus. "Yuuri! Oh my god your jacket smells like feet." She crinkles her nose and turns her face away from him. Her hug is undeterred.

Yuuri blushes, but he feels no shame. "Yeah, I haven't washed it in a while." There's understanding in her eyes and she rights the jacket on his frame, smoothing it out like a fawning mother. The hug from Takeshi is like a slap from a bulldozer. Yuuri's a little woozy in the aftermath.

The sand relaxes his hands, shifting between fingers as grainy molding clay. He has no idea what he's doing, but he follows instructions, globbing and layering. The design is Georgi's, oddly enough. Yuuri doesn't know why he finds it strange, but it doesn't change how grateful he is that he wasn't given the task. He could barely make a sand hut as a child. Georgi stands, scrutinizes, directs, and gets down and dirty with the rest of them. Kenjirou spends most of his time ferrying water. Makkachin sits regally in her place beside the budding sculpture. The rest of them smack sand between their hands as they scrape an idea into reality.

Laughter from other groups steers Yuuri's attention from his task. He watches and it's only then that Yuuri fully takes in that this is a contest. The usual flutters of nervousness and bone-gripping self-consciousness that come with competition hit Yuuri and he pauses.

The contest and the desire to win had not been factors for Yuuri before. Only the note in his pocket, an unkept promise and friendly intervention brought him to this place in time. Others flurry about their creations, brandishing tools and elaborate schematics. For a fleeting moment, Yuuri worries. Will they win? They have no chance, not with the talent the other contestants have. Will his teammates be okay? They all seemed so hopeful, so lively singing to Leo's tracks on the bus. Yuuri doesn't wish to see crushing defeat haunt their faces. And what of Viktor?

Yuuri couldn't handle it if he ruined this. This is one of Viktor's precious wishes. It has to come true.

Yuuri looks back at his own team – _Viktor's_ team – and decides that the rest of the beach doesn't matter. Winning was never the goal. This is what Viktor wanted. Yuuri searches upon the faces of each of their friends, lit up and beaming while they sculpt a fluffy likeness into Sand Makka's ears, and realizes that this is probably far more than Viktor ever wished for.

The ocean breeze clogs in his throat with unshed grief, like the last time he felt Viktor's breath. But there's a peace here, as his heart tumbles with the far off rumble of waves. The briny sea air smells slightly sun-sour, the sunscreen on his skin a mellow undertone. Wind wisped grains of sand are spirited away onto the lenses of his glasses, and it's like he's watching everything through a pixelated screen. His fingers feel tingly and there's chunky sand caught as he wiggles his toes. There's a nostalgia that melds itself into Yuuri's thoughts and if he closes his eyes he can almost imagine Viktor's laugh lilted into the tangle of his friends'.

_You would have loved this._

The ring on his finger doesn't respond to his thoughts. But Yuuri feels it in his heart.

Yuuko runs up to him and snorts as she looks down at his failed paw, drawing him back to his work. She offers to help him, flicking his nose with a sand crusted nail.

As Viktor's wish is given life, Yuuri feels something blossoming in his chest. This isn't a goodbye. He feels closer to Viktor now. They all do, Yuuri suspects. Before, the sun felt stale. Meaningless. The air tasted like dirt. He couldn't eat, couldn't sleep in a bed that held only a cold indentation of the man he loved. He felt like it wasn't just Viktor that died. It was the whole world. There was no life in a world without Viktor. Or maybe there was just no life left in him. But as he narrowly avoids having sand water dumped on him by Leo while Takeshi attempts to shove sand down his shorts, Yuuri finds that he can still live. He can still have fun, still laugh.

Yuuri can still love Viktor, be close to him, even though he is no longer alive.

It's a feeling that dances freely within him, like a kite cut from its strings.

Yuuri can let himself shine again.

Yuuri's surprised when they finish. It looks like a real, honest-to-goodness sand sculpture, worthy of the beach and the moment and everything Viktor must have thought when he wrote it. Makkachin stands tall and proud, cloaked in flowy robes, a wise hood shadowing her bowed head. She seems immortalized in the sand, an honorable goddess giving her blessings.

It's a little too mythical and abstract for Yuuri, who had imagined a literal sand Makkachin when they started, but he finds it beautiful all the same. Even in a humanoid form, she's still undoubtedly Makkachin, with poofy ears and her adorable tail, her eyes that held nothing but love and devotion for Viktor.

Yuuri tears up and when he looks, he finds that he's not the only one.

"Why is she holding a heart in her hands?" Michele asks and Yuuri's relieved because he's been wondering too. There's an anatomically correct heart carved into Sand Makka's outstretched paws. Its realism drew the sculpture a touch too far into the macabre.

"It's Viktor's," Georgi replies, emotion tumbling into his expression though he carries himself strong. "If there was anyone besides Yuuri that carried Viktor's heart, it was Makkachin." He stoops down and gives the greying dog rubs to her cheeks, hiding a broken smile in her collar.

They stand in a close knit circle as Yuuri takes a pen to the list. Chris lends him his back, lip bitten and nose reddening. Yuuri smooths the paper out between the man's shoulder blades and scratches the ink delicately across

~~_Erect a monument of Makka at a Sand Sculpting contest_ ~~

After another minute Yuuri makes a decision.

_~~Live out the rest of my life by Yuuri's side~~ _

This is not a goodbye.

Viktor is dead, but even in death, he can still remain beside Yuuri. Long after the list is gone and years after the man has passed, he will still be on Yuuri's finger, within his heart.

Yuuri's heart tugs and he thinks, quietly to himself, that this is definitely what Viktor would have wanted.

* * *

They don't win, nor do they place. They get a small yellow participation ribbon and they pin it into the front of Sand Makka's robes. A fellow participant takes their picture, all of them gathered around their newly born creation, all smiling and sobbing on a beach in California, bodies caked with sand from their frizzed hair to the creases of their toes.

It's up on Instagram within seconds. _Sandsational_ is captioned at the bottom.

Another picture follows. A scrawl written in the sand at the base of Sand Makka's feet.

_For Viktor_

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my other Viktuuri fics [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpazzticRevenge/works?fandom_id=11444638)
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [here](http://spazzticrevenge.tumblr.com/)


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